Push starts for research centre

BY RUTH HILL

Hutt Hospital plastic surgeon Colin Calcinai looks forward to the day when he can hang up his scalpel because most of his skills will be redundant.

An ambitious drive began this week to raise $13.5 million to build a world-class research institute at Hutt Hospital. Research will be aimed at finding new ways of treating people with disfiguring and sometimes life- threatening conditions.

"There have been some amazing technological advances in recent years with microsurgery but we've almost gone as far as we can," said Dr Calcinai, who also chairs the Reconstructive Plastic Surgery Research Foundation, the driving force behind plans for the Gillies McIndoe Research Institute.

"Surgery is still a blunderbuss approach - we need to look at the root causes of disease and birth defects and prevent them happening at all."

The institute, named for Kiwi plastic surgery pioneers Sir Harold Delf Gillies and Sir Archibald McIndoe, will foster research into tissue engineering, new blood vessel formation and the molecular origin of birth defects and cancers.

Hutt Hospital's director of surgery, Professor Swee Tan, who has received international acclaim for his research on vascular birthmarks, said they hoped to open the centre within 18 months. "It's a dream that's been a long time in the making."

The institute's six laboratories will be based on the floor above the regional plastic, maxillofacial and burns unit, which treats more than 12,000 patients each year.

The group needs $3.5m to set up the centre and is banking on the generosity of corporate and individual donors. The next goal will be to raise $10m for an endowment fund for continuing running costs.

- © Fairfax NZ News